


Reborn in Fire

by SpencerRemyLvr



Series: A Collection of Ideas [17]
Category: Criminal Minds, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: I have No Excuse, Mutant Spencer, Mutation, latent mutant, powers manifesting painfully, this was a dream
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 12:08:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4834763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpencerRemyLvr/pseuds/SpencerRemyLvr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was a dream I had last night. Not set in any specific time in CM or X-Men. It's just Spencer manifesting a latent mutation in the field</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was a Thursday afternoon when the whole of Spencer Reid’s life changed. It should’ve been a normal day. The BAU was on a case that they’d pretty well wrapped up. They knew who their Unsub was and had gone to apprehend him. None of them had any idea just how much things would change by the time they left that house. Spencer had no idea how much _his_ life would change.

Things wouldn’t ever be the same again.

* * *

These were the kinds of situations that no one ever liked to be in. They were the ones that Spencer hated more than anything. Dealing with Unsubs was one thing; that could get dangerous enough not just for the agents but for any civilians. But when kids were in the mix—that changed everything. Dr. Spencer Reid stood with his friend and coworker at his side in the basement of their Unsub’s house, their guns drawn, trying to talk town the man who was currently wearing a bomb strapped to his chest and holding his children hostage. They cowered over in the corner, too afraid to come out, too afraid to do much of anything.

SWAT was waiting behind them for their signal. Derek was speaking to the Unsub, trying to talk him down, while Spencer focused more on the children. If he could get them over here he could get them out and safely away.

“Mr. Hooper, please, it doesn’t have to be this way.” Derek’s voice was pitched low, that cajoling tone that Spencer had heard him use so many times. He stepped to the left, away from Spencer and the kids, which forced the Unsub to turn that way as well if he wanted to keep Derek in his sight. “We don’t want anyone to get hurt. We just want this to end as peacefully as possible.”

“Then you just get back! Get out of here!” Lou Hooper snapped, gesturing with the detonator in his hand over towards the door.

Derek gave a small, sad shake of his head. “I can’t do that, Mr. Hooper, you know that. I can’t just leave.”

With the man’s attention firmly on Derek, it allowed Spencer the freedom to inch forward just a little more. The two children were tucked back by a washer, the older one, who was only seven, was clutching his four year old brother against his chest. It was the older one that Spencer tried to lock eyes with. He couldn’t risk yelling out to him, or even calling out in a whisper, so he just kept moving, trying to get to them, trying to get the boy’s attention.

Spencer was halfway across the room when the boy looked up. Blue eyes locked on Spencer's and the fear there made him flinch inside. No kid should be afraid like that.

“I want you out of my house!” Lou was yelling to Derek. The hand with the detonator was gesturing again, each movement growing more erratic. He was getting less and less stable as time passed.

Holding the older boy’s eyes, Spencer let go of his gun with one hand and made a ‘come here’ gesture. There were just a few feet between them. If he could just get them to him it would be easier. He could protect them better.

The boy stared for only a split second and the way his eyes swept over Spencer said he was a bit too familiar with sizing up people. Whatever he saw must’ve reassured him. Never letting go of his brother, he pushed up to his feet and started to inch forward, pulling his brother along with him.

They were just a half foot in front of Spencer when everything went to hell.

The younger of the two was shuffling along with his brother without paying any attention to where he was going. He was too scared to lift his face from his brother’s shirt. Because of that, he never saw the box just a hair too close, not until he caught it with his hip and sent it tumbling down.

Everyone in the basement froze as the boxes crashed down. Lou spun, eyes wide and wild as they landed on his boys, and what Spencer saw in his eyes had him shivering.

“Run!”

The word echoed in the room and Spencer wasn’t sure who had shouted it, him or Derek, but it didn’t really matter because they were already moving. Spencer snatched up the boys in front of him and ran, already knowing even as he did that it was going to be too late, that he would never make it over and out that door in time. Fear was like a living thing inside of him, crawling up his spine, burning in his gut, spreading like wildfire. He saw Derek go out the door and was grateful at least that his friend made it out.

There was only a second for Spencer to decide what to do. One split second in which he had to somehow come up with something to save these children. Only one idea presented itself and he didn’t have time to try and think of anything else. Adrenaline gave him an extra burst of speed and he shot to the left, darting behind the nearby wall and flinging himself and the children down just as the whole world went insane. There was a large _BOOM_ that seemed both in him and out of him and Spencer did the only thing he could. He drew the two kids in against him and tucked his body down over theirs while the world shook and broke and flew around them, his only thought to shelter them from the blast.

Pain rolled over him, but it didn’t come from the outside. It was coming from inside. His insides felt like they were burning, charged by some current, thrust into a fire, ripping and tearing and breaking him apart. It shot over his skin and he screamed as his back felt like it was ripped open and torn apart. The world around him burned away to ash and took him with it. The last thought he had before the world disappeared around him was that he hoped the kids were okay.

* * *

When Spencer woke again, it was a surprise. He hadn’t expected to wake again. He’d been so sure that explosion was the end of him. And this…this was no afterlife. What was going on? Where was he? His whole body _hurt_ in ways he hadn’t even known were possible. It felt like there were hands on him, holding him, but they _hurt_ and he tried to twist, to get away from the pain. Nearby, someone was shouting and Spencer tried to hear what it was, but he lost focus as someone touched— _something—_ behind him and the pain of it whited out everything else. He yanked away from the hands. There was a _thud_ followed by a pained cry. Spencer couldn’t focus on trying to figure out what it was. He just curled in tighter on himself and tried to ride out the pain.

“Get away from him!” Another voice shouted out. This one, he knew. This one, he recognized immediately. _Derek_. “Back off, just back off, put your guns away!”

“Move, agent! That thing’s dangerous!”

Thing, what thing? Spencer whimpered and curled his hands into the ground beneath him. He _hurt_. Everything hurt.

His thoughts were echoed a second later by his friend. “He’s hurt!” Derek was snapping at someone. His voice was closer now, almost right up on him. “You were hurting him, of course he reacted. Now just _back off_!”

“Everyone, back up!” This time it was Aaron’s voice and there was that edge of command that had directed so many agents over the years. Then there was movement nearby, the sound of footsteps slipping and sliding until they were right up next to him. He swore he could actually hear it as the person crouched down near him and he knew, he should try and open his eyes, but he was so _tired_ and everything _hurt_. “Reid.” Aaron’s voice was low and calm, right next to him. It was his boss that had come close. “Reid, I know you’re hurt, but we need you to…to move. We need to see if the kids are okay.”

The kids? _The kids_!

If there was anything geared to get him to open his eyes, it was that. Spencer had them snapped open before he could even stop to think about it. What he saw had him almost immediately relaxing. Both boys were lying there staring up at him, their eyes visible in the shadows around them. Shadows? Why was it so dark? Pressing on his arms, which were still pressed into the ground to help hold him protectively over the boys, he pushed himself up just a little, lifting his eyes off the children and up, and what he saw had him freezing once more.

In a perfect cocoon around them were what looked to be great big sheets of leather? Leather and…was that _bone_? What the hell? He drew back from them and was stunned further when they _moved with him._ A part of Spencer's brain that was the scientist in him whispered the word _wings_ to him. Those were wings. But, what? How? Almost against his will he found one of his hands lifting to reach for that leather right in front of him.

The sight of his hand knocked him right out of numb shock and directly into _terrified_.

In place of his fingernails there now sat a claw at the end of each finger. A long, black claw, curved and deadly looking.

A pained sound tore from Spencer's throat. He didn’t notice the sudden tension in the officers nearby. Really, he didn’t even notice there were _present_. All of his focus was on staring at the arm that he held out in front of him and the hand that looked nothing like it had before. He held both arms out and stared at them in mute horror. Both hands had claws in lieu of fingernails, and along each forearm were three spikes, curved to point almost toward his elbows, and they were black as night.

Someone was calling out to him but he didn’t listen. His hands shot in, running over his chest, checking for more and finding nothing. The same couldn’t be said for his face.

His distress grew as these new fingers traced new extended curve of his ears and then up to his forehead where he found, Jesus, _horns_! Two of them, one above each eyebrow, coming to a point about three inches out from his head.

What the hell happened to him? What was _wrong_ with him? He wasn’t—he wasn’t a mutant! He was a grown adult. He _couldn’t_ have mutated!

The horns, spikes, wings and, oh _God_ , a _tail,_ all said otherwise.

His wings were trying to curl around him in apparent reaction to his distress. They were huge things, not feathered but more— _dragon like_. The arm of them—he couldn’t think of any other word to use—had one bend where he assumed the ‘elbow’ joint was, and then at the very end it came out into a spike, almost like a giant thumb. From that end joint spread out four long ‘fingers’, which were spiked on the end, and between those ‘fingers’ were what he had thought were blankets of leather earlier. They were pitch black, yet Spencer swore there was purple mixed in the darkness.

God, oh God, what was happening to him? What _happened!?!_

The sound of his boss’s voice broke into Spencer's stupor and he spun himself towards it immediately despite the agonizing pain his body was still in. His new wings drew back so he could see and the people nearby got a look at his face for the first time. They saw the spikes, the horns, and the thing he couldn’t see—his eyes. The sclera, what little could be seen, was black, and his pupils had thinned to a slit. His irises were bigger and were a mix of purple and blue, the colors of the night.

The strangeness of his appearance and his quick move, coupled with the low groan he let out when his aching body protested, were all it took to set off the already anxious officers. Three separate shots were fired before Aaron and Derek got control of the situation. By then, it was too late.

One shot had missed, but one had gone through the meat of Spencer's bicep while another hit his shoulder. They’d been aiming high, away from the children still under him. The pain swirled in with the agony Spencer was already under. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.


	2. Chapter 2

The next time Spencer woke it was to a surprising lack of pain. Considering that his last memories were full of it, the absence of pain was both startling and worrying. But there was a nice, hazy cloud over everything, and there was a part of his brain that was telling him that this hazy and painless feeling wasn’t a good one. Before he could really think on that, the world around him seemed to shift and jostle and he was reminded that he’d last passed out after being shot by terrified cops and maybe, just maybe, he should try and figure out what was going on now.

His brain took just a second to wake up enough to really start to take notice of important things. One of the first things he became aware of was that there were people on either side of him, under his arms, carrying him. Spencer blinked open eyes that felt really heavy. What he saw first was the ground, chunks and pieces of rock and dirt and some other kind of rubble. He was right; they were moving. He was being carried somewhere. Only, by who?

That was answered a second later when someone up ahead—it sounded like Emily—called back “Hurry up. I don’t know how long the SWAT guys are going to be able to hold the locals back.”

“I still can’t believe SWAT stepped in to help.” Derek said, coming from Spencer's right. Oh. His friend must be the one under his right arm.

The person on his left spoke next. “We can count our blessings later.” Aaron Hotchner told them firmly. There was only a slight strain showing that gave away the weight of the body he was helping to drag. “Right now let’s focus on getting him out of here before someone finally breaks free.”

Spencer knew he should probably try and lift his feet and help them move him. His legs didn’t seem to want to cooperate, though. They just hung their limply and dragged along the ground as his friends pulled him inexorably forward. However, he did feel something twitch behind him in response to his efforts, a strange sensation that he wasn’t at all sure of. What the hell was that? If his brain could just clear, get rid of whatever this fog was, maybe he’d be able to figure it out. Confused, he concentrated, flexing that weird muscle again.

“Shit.” Derek breathed out suddenly. “Guys, he’s waking up. Reid? Reid, man, we need you to calm down. We’re trying to get you out of here.”

Calm down? But he wasn’t panicking. He wasn’t doing _anything_ , really.

His questions must’ve been obvious because Aaron grunted beside him and quickly said “Your tail and wings, Reid. You’re moving your tail and wings. We need you to hold still.”

Oh! So _that’s_ what those muscles were. Spencer stilled them quickly. He opened his mouth to try and say something, to apologize maybe, only to manage nothing more than a low grunt.

“What’s wrong with him?” That was JJ, sounding so worried. “His wounds are healing already, why is he so out of it still?”

The ground under them shifted and Spencer saw it smooth out to flat ground once more. Pavement. They were at the road.

“I don’t know.” Derek said, grunting a little while he shifted his hold on Spencer.

“Blood loss,” The suggestion came from Dave, a little bit ahead of them. “Trauma. Shock. Take your pick. I get the feeling this mutation is new. Can't be easy on the body for that to hit _and_ to take the brunt of an explosion that should've killed him. Now, get him over here. This is the only thing I could think of that he’d fit in.”

“The SWAT truck?” JJ said with shock.

Spencer was only half listening to them. His body seemed torn between just floating here or slipping back down into darkness. Then the hands on him were moving and Derek’s voice got closer still, right up against his ear, while he felt himself getting pressed right up against what he soon realized as Derek’s chest. Apparently Aaron had passed him over to Derek completely. His best friend held him up and drew him in close. “Reid, I know you’ve got a little control over those wings of yours.” Derek murmured to him, low and reassuring. “I need you to try and draw them in so we can get you in the truck. We need to get you out of here before the mutant hating cops get through. Can you do that for me, kid? Just pull on those muscles and draw them in.”

“’M tired.” The words slipped free as Spencer dropped his head down to rest against Derek’s shoulder. Really, he just wanted a soft bed, somewhere that he could rest.

“I know you are, pretty boy. But I need you to pull those on in for me. We’ve got to get out of here. C’mon, kid, just give it a try. Pull them in.”

Under Derek’s gentle coaxing, Spencer reached with those new muscles, trying to treat it like they were extra arms. If he thought of them like that, he could almost feel it, feel how they reached out of him. Then, carefully, he pulled them in. He had no idea how big they were. Unlike the others, he couldn’t see how the tips of them came a good half foot over the top of his head and the spikes there curled forward somewhat over him, or how the bottoms came close to brushing the ground. They were _massive_ and should’ve been heavy. But at the moment, he could barely feel them.

He knew it was working when Derek made an approving sound next to his ear. “That’s it, kid, there you go. Almost in. Just a little more and we should be able to fit you inside.”

“I’ve got blankets laid out.” Emily said from off to their side.

Spencer drew the wings in a little further until he could feel them pressed up against his back.

As soon as they were, he was being moved again. Voices sort of blended together for Spencer with everything else as his body was lifted and then laid down on something soft. He had to lay on his side, wings pulled in close, arms and legs drawn in towards his chest. His tail came up and wrapped around his thigh. The scaled appendage ran mostly smooth until the very end of it, where it was flattened and in an arrowhead like shape. For now, it stayed resting, curled around his leg. All of Spencer was resting. It was all he felt he could do. Simply lie there, shivering slightly as he felt the van come to life beneath him. It didn’t even matter that the others had climbed in with him or that someone was up front driving. All that mattered was how tired and _cold_ he was.

“Where do we go now?” Emily asked, her voice coming from somewhere around Spencer's feet. “Where can we take him?”

“Away from here for right now.” Derek said lowly.

“Get us to a hotel for now, Dave.” Aaron called up to the front. “We can clean him up and figure it out from there.”

A chill ran down Spencer and he curled himself in a little tighter. His one wing moved, uncurling just enough to drape over him like a blanket. The bit of extra warmth it provided felt wonderful. Spencer drifted on the hazy feel of it for a little while. He wasn’t really sure how long. Everything was still so hazy and he thought that maybe he might’ve passed out again because the next coherent thing he noticed was that the whole world was shaking. For a moment he thought he was back in the explosion again. Everything was moving and shaking and there were voices crying out again. But, wait, hadn’t he gotten out of there? The children were okay. They shouldn’t be screaming. So who was screaming?

Hands tightened around him and Spencer tried to move. He tried to push his arms and legs out, even his wings or his tail, but nothing seemed to be working.

“Get your hands off him!” Someone was screaming. Emily? Was Emily screaming?

“Let him go!” Derek shouted.

The hands around Spencer tightened and new voices seeped in. “Hold him!” someone snapped while another said “He’s too damn strong!”

Spencer was gathering what little strength he had when all of a sudden something pricked his neck. In an instant, the already hazy world became even hazier.

The last thing he heard was the sound of his friends screaming his name.

* * *

The world was much clearer and quite a bit different the next time that Spencer woke. A skill born of years of habit had him staying still while he woke and slowly assessing the situation around him. It was something he’d learned to do in childhood when there was no telling what kind of mood his mother would be in when he woke, and it had been heightened by years of college and roommates who liked to play practical jokes, plus all the time at the BAU where coming back from unconsciousness generally meant that he was in trouble.

Lying on his stomach, he could feel the softness underneath him that told him he was lying on a bed. Only, he couldn’t remember getting to a bed. Was he in some sort of hospital? His brain woke up a little more and memoires started to flash in, some of them telling him that maybe he _should_ be in a hospital. At the very least he should be in pain. But, he wasn’t. His body felt fine. No pain, no aches, nothing of the sort. That clashed horribly with the last memories that he had. The explosion, the pain, waking up to find himself _changed,_ the gunshots, fleeing, and then—capture. The memories caught up with him and Spencer had to fight not to tense. He’d been taken. By who, he had no idea, but they were powerful enough to come and take him directly from his team.

A thousand different horror stories floated through Spencer's mind. He’d heard countless tales over the years about mutants who were taken. It was one of the things that so many new mutants feared the most. Coming into their powers and being taken away. Spencer's mother had spoken of it once or twice before, the fear she’d felt when her cousin’s powers had kicked in. The one and only time that William had ever spoken of his own mutation—that he’d even _admitted_ to being a mutant—he’d been drunk, and he’d told Spencer then that one of the reasons he’d hid was because no mutant wanted to be taken away. What his powers were, he’d never said, just that he didn’t want them falling into the wrong hands. For the longest time after he’d left them, young Spencer had been terrified that one of those groups his Dad was so afraid of had come and taken him away.

He’d breathed a sigh of relief when puberty had come and gone for him and no powers had showed up. With it in both sides of his family, he’d known the chances of him being a mutant were high. Nothing had happened, though, and he’d been sure he was safe.

Apparently not.

Latent mutation wasn’t unheard of—however, it _was_ highly uncommon. To manifest so late in life was, well, he’d never heard of someone coming into their powers any later than twenty. Let alone a power that was so very, physical. Physical mutations were generally there from birth.

His wings felt heavy against his back. Not heavy like he thought they would, though. Not like there was something pressing on him. More, heavy like his arms felt heavy when he was tired. New muscles were tired from use they weren’t used to. The wings themselves? It scared him to realize they felt as natural as any of his other limbs. The…tail, as well.

Soft sound nearby caught Spencer's attention. He very carefully opened one eye, just to a slit, and took in what he could of the room around him. That one look made his stomach plummet. This was very much a lab styled room. Single bed, stone floors, stone ceiling, and all stone walls except for one side of it that had a long glass window way up high, a good fifteen feet he’d estimate, that Spencer was sure would be extra thick, just to make sure he wouldn’t be able to break it. Later, if these wings proved flightworthy—wasn’t that an insane thought to have?—he’d test that. For now, he pushed back his fear, pushed it down as far as he could, and he drew on a skill Gideon had taught him and that Aaron had helped further perfect. Spencer pushed down the person inside of him and let only the analytical side forward. That part of him would be able to take in details and assess what needed to be done. That part would be able to be practical and unemotional about things. That part was his best chance at making it out of this— _alive_.

There was one person standing on the other side of the glass. A man in his fifties, tall, well groomed, with a definite military bearing despite the suit he wore. Ex-military, then, or trying to hide that he still was.

The newfound mutant didn’t stop to question how he could see something so far away with such detail when just yesterday he would’ve barely been able to see things right in front of him without his contacts in. He also didn’t question how it was he could smell chemicals, hospital type chemicals, or how he could clearly hear the _whoosh_ of air running through nearby vents.

Spencer debated between lying here and letting the man watch him or alerting them that he was awake and trying to get some answers. It didn’t take him long to decide.

His body responded easily when he pushed himself upright. Any signs of his previous injuries were gone. The gunshots on his shoulder and arm—gone. The pain in his back—gone. All of it was gone. Now, that either meant that his powers granted him some sort of accelerated healing, or he’d been here longer than his memory allowed. The second idea was rather terrifying.

Sitting up took a second to figure out with the addition of his new appendages. Luckily his tail was high up enough that it didn’t present a problem sitting normally. His wings, however, were a different story, and he had to sit with his back close to the edge of the bed so that they could hang off the side. Damn, did it feel freaking _strange_ to shift them around. His movements were clumsy, awkward, like a small child learning how to use their limbs for the first time. Once he finally had them settled, he tipped his head up and looked straight up at the window.

The man had stayed in the same position the entire time. Spencer could clearly see the smirk that he wore.

“Hello, Dr. Reid.”

The voice came through loud and clear over the speakers that Spencer hadn’t noticed before, way up by the high ceiling. The man’s voice was low and amused sounding, and something else that Spencer thought might be—pleased? Whatever it was, it set Spencer on edge. Bracing himself, the mutant tried to make his voice sound as steady as possible as he asked “Who are you? And why am I here?”

“I’m Colonel Midland.” The man introduced himself, confirming Spencer's observation on his military background. “And I think you know why you’re here, Dr. Reid. Currently, you are the oldest known person to have manifested latent mutant abilities. Most especially ones of such a, physical nature. We’re here to find out why.”

“You’re here to figure out if it can be replicated.” Spencer fired back. He wasn’t stupid; the Colonel had to know that. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on here.

The Colonel smiled at him and it was a look that sent a chill down Spencer's spine. “I suggest you make yourself comfortable, Dr. Reid.” He took a step back, casting one last look down at him. “Welcome to your new home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There? :D IS that a better place to leave off?
> 
> >:D


End file.
